Incumbent MLCs
- Gavin Jennings (ALP), since 2006. Previously MLC for Melbourne Province 1999-2006.
- Inga Peulich (LIB), since 2006. Previously Member for Bentleigh 1992-2002.
- Gordon Rich-Phillips (LIB), since 2006. Previously MLC for Eumemmerring 1999-2006.
- Bob Smith (ALP), since 2006. Previously MLC for Chelsea 1999-2006.
- Adem Somyürek (ALP), since 2006. Previously MLC for Eumemmerring 2002-2006.
Geography
South Eastern Metropolitan region covers the electoral districts of Carrum, Clayton, Cranbourne, Dandenong, Frankston, Lyndhurst, Mordialloc, Mount Waverley, Mulgrave, Narre Warren North and Narre Warren South. This region covers the outer fringe of Melbourne’s suburbs to the southeast of the city.
All eleven seats in the region are held by the ALP. Three of those seats are marginal, including Mount Waverley, which is the most marginal Labor seat in the state. A number of other seats have margins between 6% and 12%, and four seats are held by margins over 15%.
2006 result
| Group | Votes | % | Quota |
| Labor | 181,986 | 49.78 | 2.9870 |
| Liberal | 123,067 | 33.67 | 2.0200 |
| The Greens | 26,408 | 7.23 | 0.4334 |
| Family First | 19,238 | 5.26 | 0.3158 |
| Democrats | 4,967 | 1.36 | 0.0815 |
| Democratic Labor Party | 3,276 | 0.89 | 0.0538 |
| People Power | 2,580 | 0.70 | 0.0423 |
| Christian Democratic Party | 2,468 | 0.68 | 0.0405 |
| Geraldine Gonsalvez (Group E) | 1,557 | 0.43 | 0.0256 |
The Labor Party dominated the vote in South Eastern Metropolitan, winning almost 50% of the primary vote, and giving them almost three quotas in their own right.
With the ALP winning 2.98 quotas, and the Liberal Party winning 2.02 quotas, there was no doubt about the result. With four seats decided on primary votes, the ALP was very close to a third seat.
Preferences were distributed until all candidates bar the lead Family First and Greens candidates and the third Labor candidates had been excluded.
- Smith (ALP) – 0.9834 quotas
- Reiher (GRN) – 0.5737
- Hermans (FF) – 0.4089
At this point, Hermans was excluded, easily electing the ALP’s Bob Smith. The final margin for the ALP over the Greens was 11.62%.
Candidates
The Liberal Party is running Inga Peulich, Gordon Rich-Phillips and Gladys Liu. The Greens are running Colin Long. The Democratic Labor Party is running Geraldine Gonsalvez, who ran last time as an independent.
Political situation
The ALP’s first two seats and the Liberal Party’s first seat can be judged as safe. Assuming that there will not be a swing against the Liberal Party, you can also assume that the second Liberal seat will not be in trouble.
A swing of about 6% from the Labor Party to the Greens would put the Greens in with a shot of winning a seat off the ALP. While a significant swing, it remains a possibility.
Family First also polled strongly in the region, with over 30% of a quota. With favourable preferences, some luck and possibly a swing in their favour, Family First could also be in with a chance.
It also remains a possibility that the ALP could suffer from a swing to the Liberal Party. If the Liberal Party could reach around 2.6 quotas, then preferences from Family First and other small parties could see them overtake the ALP and win a seat, although they would need to gain quite a lot of ground.
Not exactly fertile ground for the Greens here; low-to-middle income outer suburbia has never been strong for them.
Liberals actually did quite well in polling 2 full quotas considering they didn’t win a single lower house seat in the region. It would give them some hope for getting that third quota in 2010, considering they are likely to win a couple of corresponding lower house seats this time.
The Liberal vote is spread more evenly here because of the more uniform demographics than some other places allowing them to have 2 quotas in the Legislative Council but no Legislative Assembly seats. It shows which system is more democratic.
Last election the Greens ran only 3 candidates in this region and I have heard/read that this cost the Greens formal votes because people who voted BTL 1,2,3, for the Green candidates in this region had informal votes while people who voted 1,2,3,4,5, for the Green candidates in the 6 regions where the Greens ran a full slate of 5 had formal votes because of the 5 preference minimum in the Legislative Council.
Geraldine Gonsalvez former (Group E) Independent will be making her run for the DLP in 2010.
Geraldine was 2nd on the DLP Senate ticket that saw the DLP gain their first Federal seat in 36 years and from all reports will have a swag of candidates in the lower house supporting her.
Best of Luck Geraldine
The redistribution after this election will probably cause some major changes around this part of Melbourne. Narre Warren South, Cranbourne and Bass are all over quota, so there’s likely to be a new seat carved out of them. Whichever seat ends up without a sitting MP will be a dead-set gimme for the Liberals, even if it appears safe on paper… see Coomera (Qld 2009) or Southern River, Ocean Reef etc (WA 2008) for examples of new seats acting like that. In particular, Coomera had the third-highest swing against Labor in Qld, with the only higher two coming from serious candidate troubles.
If the Greens do issue a split ticket, we will know on Sunday and it will be the biggest story of the election campaign. – Antony Green, ABC Electoral Analyst
Missing from Antony Green’s analysis of the upper-house regions. The upper house is the only house were the Greens will be able to direct voters preferences. There are concerns that the Greens have cut a deal upper house votes for lower house support. To try and hide their support their has been a suggestion that the Greens might issue a democratic style split ticket.
This would still deliver seats to the LNP in Victoria.
Senior Liberal members are concerned about the possibility of a 1999 hung parliament with the Greens holding the balance of power that they are even considering handing out their own how to vote card in defiance with their own party’s direction.
SOUTHERN METRO
The ALP and Green data has been inflated and the LNP under valued. If you run a simulation count based on the 2010 preference distribution, including the below the line vote , for Southern Metro and then add in a split ticket or have the Greens Preference the Liberal Party in their above-the-line group voting ticket then the results most certainly do change.
The Greens can not direct preferences for the lower house BUT they can direct preferences for the upper-house, Most above the line voters will not know where the preferences are allocated and how they will play out in the count. Only 3% of all voters vote below-the-line.
Add to that the distortion on the proportionality of the count arising from the flawed non weighted calculation of the Surplus Transfer value and the method and order of distributing preference data from excluded candidates and the election results are very much on a knifes edge.
The elections costs Victoria over 50 million dollars and hopefully we will not see a repeat of the mistakes that were made in 2006.
The Group Voting Ticket preferences have been released.
http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/current/files/2010SouthEasternMetropolitanRegionTickets.PDF
South eastern is a very interesting seat for the DLP.
They are running 11 lower house seats (from 8 different countries) and in the Upper house they are running 5 women from 5 different continents.
Many of the Candidates are first generation Australian and I dont know if this has ever been done by another party on this scale.
Certainly it adds weight to the old saying that the DLP was the party of refugees.
With the ethnic mix place so well amoungst the are one would have to rate this seat as a dark horse for the DLP.
Amazing no Victorian media has picked this up or the fact that the DLP are running thier largest campaign since 1973.
Tony, if you’re gonna cross-post your stuff all over the place, I might as well copy over Antony Green’s response to you, which should put you back in your box.
COMMENT: Perhaps if the DLP website included the information you’ve posted above, more people might know about it.The list of candidates was only placed on the DLP website after the close of nominations two weeks before polling day. The DLP has no profiles of its candidates on the website, and every candidate in South East Metro is listed with the same contact number. That is not an arrangement likely to attract attention.
There is not one press release, not one piece of information about the DLP campaign on the DLP website. The most recent item concerns the election of John Madigan to the Senate.
In an election campaign it is up to the parties and candidates to try and generate publicity for themselves, and I’m afraid the DLP website in its current state is not likely to garner much attention.
@MDMConnell, the Greens got some very strong results in this area in the Federal election – they may have made some real inroads with big increases in their vote (9.15% in Holt, 10.19% in Hotham, 9.41% in Bruce and 10.93% in Isaacs) so it may be closer than most people think, although I think that both major parties are still more likely to lock out the minor parties.
The outer bogan dust suburbs of Perth were pretty good for the Greens in the 2008 WA election, too… look at places like Mirrabooka or Cannington. (On Google Maps only, please… don’t ever go there. 😉 ) The one Greens booth above 20% outside Freo, the hills or hippie towns down south, was Lynwood, of all places. (Random suburbia.) Based on that, I reckon the Greens should get close to a quota in SE Metro. They’ll have to get above 0.7 quotas… if so, and Labor’s vote crashes, they’ll get the Labor surplus. Otherwise, 3-2 to ALP.
@Bird of paradox -I don’t know much about Perth, but most of outer South Eastern Melbourne is ok, it just needs more services and PT. It’s also a very diverse region, with some suburbs being amongst the most multicultural in the country. Given the Greens win in Western Metro, they ought to be able to win a seat in South Eastern metro, too (if not this time, than next time as they continue to strengthen their branches in the region).